


"But Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren"

by serenityabrin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Mentions of Thingol/Melian and Beren/Lúthien, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 14:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4629153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityabrin/pseuds/serenityabrin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of the Quest for the Silmaril from Thingol's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"But Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren"

When Lúthien brought Beren forth before Thingol, a shadow fell over the King's heart.  Beren was not much to look at on their first meeting.  Though Lúthien had provided him with fresh raiment, he was still ragged and a little wild from his long trial enduring the terrors of Nan Dungortheb.  
  
Thingol could see the mark that it had left upon him.  Beren stood looking around him in wonder but there was a veil over his eyes that Thingol could not pierce.  
  
It was unsettling.  
  
When Beren finally recovered himself -- when he finally turned his full attention to Thingol -- the light of his eyes was as striking as the light of the Two Trees in the eyes of Finrod and the others from Valinor.  Thingol felt the weight of that gaze upon his soul, and the shadow that lay there upon darkened.  
  
Beren's words rang throughout the great hall.  Confident.  Determined.  Challenging.  The sound of his gruff voice made the King's skin prickle.  
  
For a long moment the world held its breath.  Beren's desire was naked and unrepentant.  Others had looked upon Lúthien with desire but wrapped their designs in flattery and demure words.  They knew better than to risk the King's wrath.  
  
Beren heeded no such consideration -- either to his own safety or to Thingol's authority.  
  
No one had ever spoken to Thingol like that before.  No one had dared to stand proud and tall before him as if they were equals.  
  
Emotion stirred in Thingol's breast and he believed it to be anger and resentment.  Why shouldn't he be angry at this baseborn thrall who dared to think himself good enough for the most precious of Elven jewels?  After such an outrageous declaration, who wouldn't resent the hasty oath Thingol had given his daughter not to harm the Man?  
  
Thingol managed to contain his feelings but he did not censor his thoughts.  He called the Man out on his presumption and labeled him as he saw fit.  
  
But Beren continued to remain unbending and unyielding in his own turn.  He refused to be labeled baseborn, spy, or thrall.  His eyes glittered with passion as they continued to meet Thingol's gaze.  Thrusting his hand in the air so that all could see the ring upon it, Beren did not once look away.  
  
Melian's voice was calm and quiet as she whispered softly in her husband's ear.  Thingol knew she was ever circumspect in her advice and it was always well that he heed her.  
  
But the shadow over his heart turned into a vise.  Thingol did not know himself.  He met Beren's piercing gaze for as long as he could bear it.  But even he -- great King of the Sindar, only Elf to marry a Maia, and father to the most beautiful of Eru's Children -- he was not strong enough to endure under Beren's regard.  He felt that look all the way to his bones, and he felt shaken, though he did not know why.  
  
So, he turned his eyes to his beloved daughter.  
  
Her gaze was cool like a forest spring.  Familiar and kind.  Depthless like her mother's -- she held a wisdom all her own and he had never fully known it.  
  
Unsettled by this newcomer, Thingol did not know what to think or do.  He looked upon his daughter and felt fully the love he bore her.  He looked upon her and felt the shadow squeezing his heart.  He looked upon her and felt a doom creeping upon him.  
  
And so he set his terms unthinking.  
  
Thingol mustered the courage of a King and stared down the little Man who would seek to steal from him the greatest of his treasures.  He grabbed hold of his anger at Beren's presumptuousness and his fear of losing his daughter, and made an armor of it as he threw down a gauntlet of challenge.  
  
He would not be parted from his daughter for anything less than a Silmaril, and thus he would not be parted from her at all for there was none who could accomplish so great a task.  Thingol could keep his word and his daughter and send this confusing Man to his death as was warranted.  
  
Beren laughed then.  He laughed at Thingol's terrible price as if it were the smallest of matters.  Agreeing easily enough, Beren bowed to the King -- the only show of deference he'd bothered with -- and then took his leave.  
  
Thingol watched him until he was out of view.  
  
The shadow over his heart darkened further, and Thingol did not need his wife's quiet warning or the understanding look in his daughter's eyes to know that he had set them all upon a road beyond his comprehension.  
  
But he was yet too afraid to look at the reasons of his heart and he did not back down.  
  
He did not call Beren back.  


 

************************

 

  
The quiet that descended upon his realm was enough to drive Thingol mad.  His daughter's gaze held no accusation when she looked at him, not even when he imprisoned her.  Melian was quiet and would not counsel him.  But her gaze too was soft and pitying.  
  
Thingol's anger grew.  He wanted blame.  He wanted derision.  He wanted righteous fury and bitterness.  He wanted someone to call him out -- someone he could push back against.  
  
But no one spoke a word.  
  
Lúthien sang not.  Melian spoke not.  The world was far too quiet, and Thingol was left alone with his thoughts.  
  
He felt on unsteady ground.  Something momentous was on the horizon but he was not equipped to confront it, and he did all in his power to stuff it back down into the dark where he could pretend it did not exist.  
  
But then his world was upended again.  His daughter was gone completely, and whatever concerns had haunted his dreams were small indeed in comparison.  
  
For an agonizingly long time there was no word.  Thingol sat upon his throne before an empty chamber.  His wife said there was nothing to do but to wait for the doom he had planted to reach fruition, whatever that might be.  
  
It rubbed him wrong to sit and wait.  His thoughts turned more and more to the hated Man who had caused all this.  If not for Beren, Lúthien would still be safe at home, and Thingol would not know the fear of losing his child.  If not for Beren, Thingol would not feel like the world was crashing down around him and make him doubt himself as he did.  
  
When word finally reached him, it was devastating.  Yes, Lúthien was safe in Nargothrond (though Thingol doubted how safe that could truly be in the care of Fëanorians) but Beren and Finrod were accounted dead.  
  
Thingol was staggered by the news.  True, Beren he had sent to his death, but the King had not thought it to be so soon.  And Finrod he had not accounted to be the victim of his ill-conceived quest at all, and Thingol rued this bitterly.  
  
Finally Thingol had the accusing stare he'd longed for.  Galadriel wept bitterly when she heard the news.  Her tears were all the accusation Thingol desired, and he felt hollow and helpless.  
  
It was not a feeling he knew, and he did not care for it at all.  
  
Unable to confront his role in Finrod's death or the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Beren dead, Thingol threw all of himself into the one avenue for action afforded him -- to retrieve his daughter.  
  
He fully embraced his anger at the thought of her in the hands of those loathsome Fëanorians.  Their presumption to marry her was far worse than Beren's.  Beren could be excused by the deficiencies of his understanding and his youth.  He could not fully understand what he had asked for, and he had paid for that with his life.  But that the Fëanorians -- that _Finwë's_ kin -- would make this demand of Thingol was an insult beyond any the King would endure.  
  
But word reached him swiftly that Lúthien had escaped on her own.  Once again Thingol was left in the terrible twilight of not knowing her fate. 

And she was not the only one missing.  Daeron had suddenly disappeared too.  
  
Nor was that the end of the bad news.  Sending out messengers to seek aid in recovering Lúthien, Thingol learned of a terrible new threat that had come to Doriath.  A dread wolf had broken through Melian's enchantments and approached ever nearer to Menegroth.  
  
The world had turned upside down and nothing was right anymore.  Everything was falling apart and Thingol didn't know what to do.  


 

************************

 

  
The second meeting of Thingol and Beren was heralded by the music of thousands of voices uplifted to find Lúthien returned.  
  
Lost in the gloom of worry and heartache, Thingol was caught unawares by the tumult.  He watched with wonder as Beren -- whom he had accounted dead -- led Lúthien before Thingol's throne and did what the Fëanorians had not; he returned her to her father.  
  
Still unbending, Beren knelt and proclaimed his quest a success.  Gruff voice once again ringing through the great hall, he boldly stated that the Silmaril was even now in his hand.  
  
Halfway between outrage and admiration for the continued challenge Beren offered him, Thingol naturally demanded proof.  Beren made a show of opening his left hand to show there was nothing in it before he showed the stump of his right arm -- showed the price he had paid to complete Thingol's quest.  
  
Thingol looked anew on him then.  He saw for the first time the vestiges of a terrible illness that lingered in the hollows of Beren's cheeks, and he understood what Beren had gone through.  He saw the shadow of grief in Beren's eyes, and he knew that he was not alone in feeling the guilt and sorrow of Finrod's death.  He saw the softening of Beren's features when the Man's gaze turned towards Lúthien, and he finally accepted the love they bore each other.  
  
He looked upon this proud Man and finally saw him truly.  There was never one such as this before and there never would be again.  Here was something new in the world and it was beyond even Thingol's power.  
  
As he listened with wonder and amazement to the tale of their quest, Thingol finally accepted his own heart and knew the cause of the bitterness that lay therein.  He confronted all his fears and his unlooked for hopes as well.  Looking upon his daughter, he set aside his selfish desires and thought only of her happiness.  
  
But it was not without a shadow of regret that he allowed them to handfast before him.  
  
Seeing the joy in his daughter's face when she accepted Beren as her husband -- seeing the peace in Beren's when he accepted Lúthien as his wife -- that hollow feeling only grew.  
  
But he no longer sought to impede its progress.  


 

************************

 

  
His daughter's joy was not to last.  Carcharoth remained a threat.  Having spent weeks in darkness and in doubt, Thingol was not content to stay behind.  
  
A part of him quailed at the thought of Beren joining him in the Hunt, but he could not deny Beren's right in the enterprise and he silenced that little voice inside himself.  
  
And so it was that the mightiest of Doriath assembled.  Beleg Strongbow and Mablung of the Heavy Hand joined their King while Beren called only upon Huan the Hound of Valinor.  Small in number they might be but Thingol was certain it would be enough for one mad wolf.  
  
And so it was.  The duel of Huan and Carcharoth would be rightly renowned in legends for the fierceness of the battle.  
  
But Thingol could tell little of it for he did not see it.  
  
Tracking Carcharoth to the sweet waters of Esgalduin, the hunters set a guard about the place and waited for the wolf to show itself.  
  
Beren stood beside Thingol.  Though Thingol was more kindly disposed to him now, he still gave little thought to the Man.  His attention was for wherever Carcharoth might have hidden himself.  
  
Huan had left their side unnoticed.  Just as they discovered his absence, the Hound set to baying furiously, and Carcharoth leapt out of the thorns.  The wolf was aimed straight for Thingol, his teeth bared.  
  
But Beren was suddenly there with spear at the ready.  He jumped in front of the Elf-king before Thingol could do anything to stop him.  
  
Carcharoth swept aside Beren's spear with ease and felled him, biting deep into his breast.  If Huan had not jumped upon the wolf at the moment, Beren would have been killed right then.  
  
Thingol gave no heed to the great spectacle of Hound and Wolf -- greatest of battles between such foes that would ever be.  
  
No, Thingol saw how terrible Beren's wound was, and he fell to his knees beside the Man.  Blood spurted out and bathed the King's arms as he gathered Beren to him.  Thingol tried to staunch the wound as best he could, but it was like trying to soak up the ocean with a rag.  
  
It was then that Thingol knew the wound was mortal.  
  
Beren looked up at Thingol.  The King could not read the expression that lay therein but he could not look away.  Only once before had someone trapped him with a gaze like this, and he had married her.  
  
That same pull grabbed him and he came to a horrifying realization too late.  Holding Beren's broken body -- feeling Beren's blood seeping through his fingers -- Thingol understood his heart truly and knew himself lost.  
  
Numbly, he watched Huan say goodbye to Beren.  Numbly, he watched Mablung return the Silmaril to Beren.  Numbly, he watched as Beren held the Silmaril aloft and bid Thingol to take it.  
  
Eyes weary and sad, Beren declared the quest achieved and accepted his fate.  
  
He spoke no more, and lived only long enough to be returned to Lúthien and hear her command to wait for him beyond the sea.  
  
Then his eyes closed and death took him.  
  
And Thingol wept.  


 

************************

 

  
Having lost two that he loved, a winter descended upon Thingol.  He sat unmoving, uncaring upon his throne and there was none who could get through to him.  
  
Melian knew not to try.  
  
How long he remained like that, he did not know.  Not until his daughter returned to him did he know himself.  At first he thought her only a phantom to torment him of his terrible choices.  
  
But then she touched his hand and he knew she was no phantom.  The joy of seeing her returned to him was like no other joy he had ever known, made sweeter for the sorrow that had preceded it.  
  
Greater still was his wonder and joy when he saw that she did not return alone.  
  
The memory of warm blood drenching his skin remained on his fingers, and he knew that Beren's death had not been so easy a thing to undo as Lúthien's, whose body remained fair and unravaged.  
  
But Beren proved as whole and real as Lúthien.  Unlooked for, Thingol was offered a second chance to make right the wrongs he had long dwelled on in the quiet and stillness following their deaths.  
  
Casting aside all thoughts of his own desires, Thingol sought only to repair the damage he had wrought.  
  
But that was not to be his only second chance.  
  
Lúthien looked at him with her knowing eyes.  She saw his heart truly.  Doubtless she had known his desire long before he had.  She was her mother's daughter though, and such things did not faze her.  
  
Taking him aside, she assured him of her steadfast love for him and for Beren.  She told him that she did not desire that he should be sorrowed on her behalf.  Obliquely she had given her permission but Thingol did not understand in that moment what exactly she was offering.  
  
Though grieved for their daughter's choice of mortality, Melian also sought Thingol out.  She once again reminded him that though she had taken an Elf-form for love of him and loved none so well as him, she was a Maia.  The social constructs of Elves and Men were a garment she could wear to seem as one of them but it was not a part of her that she felt.  Betrayal that he could love another was foreign to her understanding for she knew he loved her also; she could feel it.  
  
Thingol did not rightly understand this conversation either.  
  
But when Beren finally came for him -- when Beren confessed that Thingol's might and grandeur had struck him dumb upon their first meeting -- Thingol realized what the women in his life had given their permission for.  
  
He did not refuse when Beren reached for him.  The mighty King of the Sindar surrendered to his desires and submitted himself to Beren.  
  
As ever, Beren remained unbending and unyielding.  He took from Thingol all that the King could give, and Thingol was satisfied.  
  
And so it was that Beren and Lúthien went forth alone with Thingol's blessing.  
  
But where the world knew them to be forever sundered from that time on, those closest to the King knew that Beren returned from time to time in secret.  
  
Thus Lúthien and Melian generously shared their husbands while Beren and Thingol divided their time between two loves.  
  
Had their fates been other than they were perhaps a great epic would have been woven of the trials of such a complicated relationship.  
  
The world was not so kind and the joy did not last.  But it cannot be said that it failed on their account.  
  
For the love of Beren and Thingol was no less than Beren and Lúthien or Thingol and Melian, and such things were worth remembering.  
  


 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Silmarillion: "There they fought to the death; but Thingol gave no heed, for he knelt by Beren, seeing that he was sorely hurt."


End file.
